Katrina
Due to computer access issues I haven't been on much. But here I am now.
We all know the basics about Hurricane Katrina by now. It's been what, six days already? Thousands and thousands of lives have been permanently altered and changed by this tragedy.
It's been said that Camp Williams in Utah will shelter a thousand refugees. (I'm not sure about the number of refugess, it might be two thousand, it might be two hundred.) Utah was one of the first states to respond to the refugee problem according to MSNBC news. Yah for Utah!
I think that there's been a lot of blabble over whether the response was too slow. It took two days for the military, equipment, etc. to get organized. Compared to the four-day response to Hurricane Andrew, that's not bad at all in my opinion. But the response to the Sri Lanka tsunami was supposedly faster, according to a post on freerepublic.com. I disagree; didn't it take a week or so to respond to the Asian tsunami? It takes time for the military to moblilize, doesn't it? We're being too harsh on these people who really are doing everything they can to respond to this disaster.
Not to mention, you shouldn't go comparing this national tragedy to an international tragedy. For New Orleans, one has to work through several intricate, federal systems (the buses, the militia, etc.), which isn't something that had to be done for the tsunami. Too quick to judge, I say.
Regardless of your opinion on fast-or-slow, perhaps this incident has also altered the way people think about how the U.S. responds in this post-9/11 nation. What do you think?
We all know the basics about Hurricane Katrina by now. It's been what, six days already? Thousands and thousands of lives have been permanently altered and changed by this tragedy.
It's been said that Camp Williams in Utah will shelter a thousand refugees. (I'm not sure about the number of refugess, it might be two thousand, it might be two hundred.) Utah was one of the first states to respond to the refugee problem according to MSNBC news. Yah for Utah!
I think that there's been a lot of blabble over whether the response was too slow. It took two days for the military, equipment, etc. to get organized. Compared to the four-day response to Hurricane Andrew, that's not bad at all in my opinion. But the response to the Sri Lanka tsunami was supposedly faster, according to a post on freerepublic.com. I disagree; didn't it take a week or so to respond to the Asian tsunami? It takes time for the military to moblilize, doesn't it? We're being too harsh on these people who really are doing everything they can to respond to this disaster.
Not to mention, you shouldn't go comparing this national tragedy to an international tragedy. For New Orleans, one has to work through several intricate, federal systems (the buses, the militia, etc.), which isn't something that had to be done for the tsunami. Too quick to judge, I say.
Regardless of your opinion on fast-or-slow, perhaps this incident has also altered the way people think about how the U.S. responds in this post-9/11 nation. What do you think?
posted by Alexander @ 10:28 AM
1 Comments:
At 11:06 AM,
Lindsey said…
Well, here's something that isn't getting a lot of news coverage:
The Bush administration asked the governor of Louisianna to take over the evacuation BEFORE Katrina hit. However, the governor wouldn't allow it. "Oh no, we're fine, we know what we're doing..." Then it turns into a pride issue and a "We did offer you help, now why wouldn't you take it!?"-type thing. So I'm not complaining about the response...
On the other hand, reports are that Bush just had five consecutive weeks of vacation. It was calculated that with the rate he's going at, he'll only spend 6.8 of his eight years actually not on vacation! No other president did that...
Ah, the media is interesting. Bias all around!
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